God's mercy at heart of Pope's daily homily

(Vatican Radio) The heart of God’s message is mercy: that’s what Pope Francis told staff of the Vatican’s Governatorate gathered for daily mass Friday at the Santa Marta guest house inside the Vatican. Together with the pope, Cardinal Jorge Liberato Urosa Savino, Archbishop of Caracas concelebrated the early morning liturgy which coincided with Venezuela’s national holiday.
Listen to our report:
In his homily, Pope Francis drew on the Gospel reading from Matthew: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Pope Francis repeated Jesus’s words to the Pharisees who criticize the Lord for sharing a meal with sinners. The taxpayers, he explained, “were sinners twice because they were attached to money and were also traitors of the country” in the sense that they collected taxes from their own people for the Romans. Jesus, then, sees Mathew, the tax collector, and looks upon him with mercy:
Matthew, he says, feels Jesus’s gaze upon him and “he feels stunned; he hears Jesus’ invitation: ‘Follow me! Follow me!’ At that moment, this man is full of joy but he’s also doubtful because he’s also very attached to money. It just took a moment – and we see how (the artist) Caravaggio was able to capture it: that man who was looking, but also, with his hands, was taking the money. Only a moment in which Matthew says yes, leaves everything and goes with the Lord. It is the moment of mercy received and accepted: ‘Yes I’m coming with you!’ And it is the first moment of the meeting, a profound spiritual experience.”
The second moment comes as a feast. “The Lord feasts with the sinners”: God’s mercy is celebrated. And following these two moments, the stunned encounter and the feast, comes the “daily work” of announcing the Gospel:
“This work must be nurtured with the memory of that first encounter, of that feast. And this is not one moment: up to the end of life. Memory. Memory of what? Of those events! Of that encounter with Jesus who has changed my life! Who had mercy! Who was so good to me and who told me also: ‘invite your friends who are sinners so we can have a feast!’ That memory gives Matthew strength and to all of them to forge ahead. ‘The Lord has changed my life! I met the Lord!’ Remember always. It is like blowing on the embers of that memory, no? Blowing to keep the fire alive, always.”
The biblical parables talk of those who refuse to take part in the Lord’s feast. And Jesus went out to “find the poor, the sick and he feasted with them:”
“And Jesus, continuing this habit, feasts with the sinners and offers forgiveness to sinners. ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice. I did not come to call the righteous but the sinners.’ Those who consider themselves righteous, they can cook in their own stew! He came for us sinners and this is beautiful. Let us be regarded by Jesus’s mercy; let us celebrate and remember this salvation!”